Post-Musharraf Challenge for Pakistan

Two days after
Pervez Musharraf stepped down from the nation's presidency,
the debate rages on in Pakistan on two questions: where the
defeated military dictator will go now and where the country
is headed. The third question - about the future of the
system itself - has yet to become a dominant theme in
Pakistani discourse.

On where Musharrraf is going, which
is the issue of immediate popular interest, some answers
have been attempted. Saudi Arabia, where he had exiled
former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was deemed an obvious
option. It has nearly been ruled out now as not the right
place for the former general fond of Scotch whiskey and free
talking. Turkey, which he preferred as the place of his
boyhood and the NATO nation with a pro-West and "secular
army," is also apparently out because of its relative
proximity to Iraq. The US and the UK, so anxious thus far to
get him a "safe exit," are not exactly rushing to offer him
refuge.

By several accounts, Musharraf himself would
like, above all, to leave the army headquarters, where he
has outstayed his welcome, only for a house he has been
building in a posh Islamabad suburb. The house in Chak
Shahzad will include a fish-pond, a walking track and "an
extraordinary amount of barbed wire," according to a report
quoting Hammad Husain, the architect entrusted with the
task. Husain, a family friend, is also reported to have
disclosed that Musharraf's wife Sehba had chosen "the
curtains and fittings for the house, estimated at $2.34
million USD."

Some may cavil at the cost of the house,
which may not be quite compatible with the ex-president's
corruption-free image. The more important point, however, is
that the ruling coalition in Pakistan cannot reconcile
itself easily to Musharraf's continuous stay in the country.
The rulers seem to share the apprehension that, as a
resident of Pakistan and Islamabad, Musharraf has better
chances of staging a return.

Many think that even his
exit from Pakistan will offer no guarantee against
Musharraf's return. Both Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif,
the top leaders of the main coalition partners - the
Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League
(Nawaz) or the PML (N) - have returned to politics and
power, after all. True, no military ruler has done so after
his fall from grace. Musharraf, however, may mark a
departure from the dismal record of his military
predecessors in this regard.

According to many pundits,
he has given proof of better political skills than most of
them. He certainly spoke like a politician on an election
platform in his farewell address to the nation, notable for
its frequent references to the "garib awam (poor people),"
suffering from a serious food crisis and an inflation rate
threatening to soar above 25 percent. He also promised to
sustain his interest in the people. Analysts have noted that
the "king's party," the Pakistan Muslim League (Qaid-e-Azam)
or the PLL (Q), has a reckonable presence in the country's
parliament.

Speculation on where post-Musharraf Pakistan
is going has dealt mainly with two specific issues. Quite a
few - not necessarily his friends - have talked of his exit
as bad news for the "war on terror" and the India-Pakistan
peace process. The assessment is based on assumptions about
what Musharraf represented in relation to both issues.
Condoleezza Rice has voiced the "deep gratitude" of the US
for Musharraf's backing for the post-9/11 offensive against
"global terror." In India, even some hawks give him credit
for breaking the ice between the two countries on the vexed
Kashmir issue.

The assessments ignore Musharraf's entire
record on both counts. He was an acknowledged architect of
the Kargil war between India and Pakistan in 1999, started
soon after the proclamation of both as nuclear-weapon
states. Also, he derived his power from his position as the
chief of an army known and notorious for its close and often
conspiratorial links with religious parties and extremists.
Even the other day, he paid a fulsome tribute to the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), an agency of unsavory
reputation, as Pakistan's "first line of defense."

Experts, not associated with the hawks either in Washington
or New Delhi, do not endorse the assessment. Ayesha Siddiqa,
author of "Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military
Economy," says that the "anti-terror policy without
Musharraf will be similar to that with him - dialogue when
possible, force when required. The military will continue to
fight, and the political government will continue to
negotiate. The negotiations must continue, as it is now an
issue of saving Pakistani society from the hands of the
Taliban."

The elected government of Pakistan will meet
this expectation only if and to the extent that Musharraf's
exit marks an enduring change in the system. Elections and
civilian rule have returned every now and then to the
country, which has known five military dictators in 50
years. Democracy, however, has not proven as safe as the
exit of exiled leaders.

The primary reason for this
cannot be found in the poor performance of the elected
regimes, combined with their corruption. It is not either
the performance or the probity of governments in neighboring
India, for example, that has helped democracy survive and
take roots in India. Dictatorship has supplanted democracy
again and again in Pakistan because of the dominance that
the army has acquired and preserved in Pakistan's
socio-political life.

It is no secret that Zardari and
Sharif, while agreeing on the move to impeach Musharraf,
still differ on important issues of internal policy that the
general has left behind. The PPP leader is not in a hurry to
reinstate judges sacked by Musharraf, while the PML (N)
chief is in a rush to do so. Neither of them has even
brought up the issue of how to deal with a National
Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), by which Musharraf freed
both from bothersome corruption cases.

Differences of
this kind pose no dire threat to Pakistan's democracy. More
serious, however, is the fact that the pro-democracy camp
has yet to make up its mind on the systemic change that it
needs to usher in. We are not talking only about the need to
amend a constitution in order to divest the president of the
powers to dissolve the parliament or to make high-level
military and judicial appointments. These powers are
incompatible with a parliamentary form of governance, and
the parties may agree to reduce the presidency to a
ceremonial office.

They need to proceed further and
initiate fundamental measures to end the army's predominance
in Pakistan's polity. As Siddiqa has argued in her
pioneering work, the power of an army with a formidable
presence in fields ranging from real estate business to
retail trade, and from breakfast cereals to banks and school
education cannot easily be countered by politicians alone.
Current army chief Asfaq Pervez Kiyani promised a change by
recalling some military officers from their posts in civil
departments of the government, but the symbolic gesture may
not suffice.

The coming period should be one where
representative rule is made to work for the people and where
the army is shown its place. Otherwise, Musharraf will be
only one more in a series of military dictators dislodged
without a decisive and meaningful victory for Pakistan's
democracy.

*************

A freelance journalist and a peace activist
in India, J. Sri Raman is the author of "Flashpoint" (Common Courage Press, USA).
He is a regular contributor to
Truthout.

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